Time Flies – Part 1 – Headed West

Yo!! – 27 months since I last captured our journey? Are you kidding me? Wow, that’s actually correct. I suppose I could list several reasons why it has been so long, with the majority ending up in the excuse category. Yet, looking back at past posts and evolution of the posts made, I would have to say my writing stopped due to two main factors:

1. Motivation – who was I writing for? In earlier posts, I was able to capture our adventure along with the personal emotion entwined in our exploits, hoping to strike a chord with groups showing their support, allowing me to cater my writing towards a certain niche. Would this end up being a way to turn my creativity into income? I was certainly hopeful, yet it did not. Then a bright idea for a product I created out of sheer will, knowledge, and art – maybe I could leverage our adventure and writings to bring Flip Fit to the public and gain financial traction – Nope. Social media trends and requirements to gain a spotlight became a life-suck quickly. I was barking up the wrong tree – one I wasn’t willing to completely sell-out to climb. The wrong motivation for me….So, yeah it took me 24 months to return to my original position: “If nothing else, these writings will serve as an awesome memoir of something my family and I doing to look back on – a journal.”
2. Time – since my efforts were not producing anything substantial to support my family on, I had to get to work. “Traditional” work that came with a blessing in the form of knowledge to pursue and carve my own path of remote work. I plan to touch on this within the recounting of the last two years. However, raising kids, homeschooling, taking in adventure after adventure and attempting to build a unique remote job….well, let’s just say writing had to take a back-seat. It takes a considerable amount of time to compose these entries!

Well, having found the appropriate motivation, I’m back to recount our adventures. There have been so many, and time has flown so quickly, much of the emotion tied into the adventuresome challenges may be lacking due to the distance of time in which they took place. So, more for me than you, I plan on recounting the last 27 months in a multi-part series in order that we can look back on these years with fondness.

PS – If you are reading this, thank you. You are likely our biggest supporters in our life, and we cherish your love and support.

Ok….My last entry was made on December 19, 2021, as we were preparing to leave on an epic trip from Troy, Alabama after a 4 month stay while Leah worked a contract and I took care of the homestead while trying to promote our game, Flip Fit.

Our first stop was was near New Orleans, LA to visit the French Quarter, and take in some of the culture there. Being that it was completely off-season, we were somewhat let down by the fact that the streets were void of street musicians and the vibrancy one can easy conjure up when picturing New Oreleans. However, the beignets frome Du Monde were fresh and the elevated cemeteries were creepy!

To get more of the true Cajun flavor we stayed near Ville Platte, LA. It was here, we were able to learn of the benefit of rotating cops yearly between rice and crawfish, the importance of sugar cane production to the area and the “Zydeco Breakfast”, and held baby alligators at a reptile rescue house. After learning we were about a month too early to get down on a crawfish boil due to harvest not happening yet, Leah was hell-bent on finding a local experience of a Zydeco Breakfast. Apparently, it is common on Saturdays to have breakfast and a drink while listening and dancing to the French influenced cajun music called Zydeco. Leah found a local favorite – proven not to dissapoint, and promptly rushed us out the door without eating any breakfast. If you know our family, breakfast is not a meal we happily skip. We found ourselves walking into the dankest, smokiest bar I have ever been to (not to mention with our kids) to find a group of folks no younger than 70 years old milling about. There was no breakfast, and when I approached the barkeeper, I was told there was some left over boudin we could have if we wanted.

It seemed as though the band – a group of four guys with 3 older women as their groupies – played a maximum of 2 songs before heading out to the back for another smoke break. It was during the first song of their two-song set that the barkeeper came up to our table with a couple handfuls of boudin wrapped in napkins. We kindly accepted (took one nibble) and decided to join in to dance for the second song. We made a few old folks smile, and then made our exit a second after the last note was played. Wild…… *Note: There is a very short video of this scene recorded, however we did not stop to take photo!

Fortunately, the second try at a Zydeco breakfast held a little more for us. We went into the main part of downtown and found a bustling restaurant where we could actually order a meal and the band was playing a full set – actually I don’t think they ever stopped. It was pretty fun, yet crazy at it felt like a night club scene at 10:30AM, not PM!

Our New Orleans King Cake was enjoyed with Leah’s cousin whom we had the pleasure of visiting and meeting her husband and young child.

Our next stop was planned to be on Bolivar Peninsula, TX – just east of Galveston. Apparently, it is acceptable to boondock (camp without hookups) right on the beach – owner accepting all risks. Well, what the heck – let’s drive our 17,000-pound 5th wheel and Ram 3500 right onto the sand to camp! Yes, we researched this ahead of time, yet it was not without trepidation that I inched our rig out onto the sand – and guess what? No problems – it was actually more comfortable driving on the compacted sand than most of the roadways we’ve traveled.

This was a cool stop as it allowed us a few nights unplugged, with the beach and ocean right out our front door. The sunrises were great, a massive sandcastle was built, yet the air temperature was too cool to really enjoy the ocean as “beach” getaway.

The day we left the beach, we encountered another towing first; a free ferry from the peninsula into Galveston! Yup – our 41-foot camper hitched up to the truck was to drive onto a boat and cross an ocean inlet. Again, no hiccups – though it was crazy how tight all the vehicles were packed in – and we were able to enjoy a smooth trip across the water with dolphins accompanying us along the way!

Our drive that day took us to Fredericksburg, TX for a 4-night stay. We were able to visit the towns of both Fredericksburg and Luckenbach – very charming and historic – yet the highlight of this stay was our guided rock-climbing trip in Enchanted Rocks State Park. We met our guide, Jeff, at the trailhead at 8:00am. We took a cool hike to a climbing point where Jeff taught us climbing 101, and before we knew it, we were being challenged by what seemed like a nearly vertical wall with nothing more than a few nubs and cracks as finger and toe purchases to climb on. A cool introduction to a sport both Fisher and Leah really took to. Faith and I? We’re both more inclined to try and then help from solid ground!

Boy…that’s only a couple days’ worth of 27 months to try and catch up on! The next month following our Fredericksburg trip is when things became really big – really fast! Stay tuned for part two!